Dark Side of the Moon
by faerietell
Summary: Three years ago, Bellamy Blake served as a guard for two hours to protect Clarke Griffin (they couldn't stand each other for any longer). Now, she's under his command as a girl dressed as a soldier but with her own motives in mind. Or, No, actually, that's pretty much it.
1. prologue

_We must be swift as a coursing river_  
_With all the force of a great typhoon _  
_With all the strength of a raging fire_  
_Mysterious as the dark side of the moon_

The first time they had met, he had drawled out a, "just because you're the goddamn princess and I'm your low-born guard doesn't mean I'll sleep with you." She had told him that she wouldn't sleep with him to save her life (or his), and he retorted with telling her that was exactly the kind of thing a princess would say. They went back and forth for the next two hours, and then he asked for a transfer to the prison because he would rather guard criminals than royalty. She had conceded, and that was supposed to be it.

Three years later, they were meeting for the second time, and she could hardly meet his eyes when she couldn't tear her gaze away from the gun held in his grasp. Of all the captains she could have been assigned to, it was the one who might recognize her, the one who held a gun in his callused hands as easily as he held her fate in his cracked palms. "Name?" He barked out.

"Clarke of the Sky People." A girl's name as well as a boy's name thankfully, but she had to stop herself from pulling her hand down her cropped hair.

"Look up when you're talking to me, princess," he told her. "I'm your captain, not your Royal Highness." There were a few jeers at his taunt, and she gritted her teeth.

"Yes, sir," she bit out.

"Right," he glanced at her again, gaze harder. Her pale eyes (were her lashes too thick?) met his dark ones, defiant. Then he walked on to the next soldier. "Name?"

"You know me, big bro," the raven-haired soldier said, and Clarke couldn't help but glance over at him. He was slender built like Bellamy, but if they were related like he suggested, she could see the family resemblance. He was almost beautiful where Bellamy was handsome.

"Yeah, very cute," he said in the tone that suggested it wasn't. "Name, O."

"You said it," he shrugged, lifting a shoulder.'

The captain narrowed his eyes, and at last he responded with a, "The name's Octavian Blake of the Sky People. Younger brother to the famous Captain Bellamy Blake. And hell lot more fun." Some laughed at that, and Clarke found herself grinning.

"And a lightweight," there was a hint of a smile on his lips, and somehow he was more attractive in those few moments than he had been for the past hour.

"I call that more fun."

Then he _laughed _– a warm, rough sound – before he moved along the line. Clarke allowed herself a sigh of relief. She had been certain that the sea-blue of her eyes would have given her away, that somehow the bindings around her chest would fall apart. She had been certain that he would recognize her as their princess, heiress to their queen, and her charade would end right there.

Of all the camps she could have been assigned to, she had to be assigned to this one. She never thought that she would be a soldier, but if she had been raised to rule, she could learn to follow. Besides, this was a necessity. The only way she could talk to Empress Lexa was either with a hostage at her blade or through fighting her, and Clarke was the only one who could bring an end to it.

In those two years of peace not too long ago, they had been close. They had been friends. They had been more than that, but that summer of sticky kisses and her lips against Clarke's throat was long past. Love was weakness, Lexa had told her then. Lexa had never loved Clarke, but she didn't think her weak. All she had to do was be assigned to one of the troops attacking her – and Lexa was nothing like her mother, locked up in the Ark and giving commands because she fought in the battles herself – which could be her chance.

Only it wasn't just being found out as a princess that stood in her way. It was being found out as a girl. Women were leaders, engineers, artists and medics, but they weren't soldiers. It was a crime punishable by death. A man and a soldier was a double guise, and it was sure to lead her to talk to Lexa.

She knew she could do it if given the chance. She knew she could bring back the peace that had once held. Her pale gaze followed her captain's descend down the line, and her throat tightened. Bellamy Blake, however, might be a problem.

: :

At first, he didn't spare the shorter soldier a second glance. It was only when he saw the gleam of defiance in his eyes that Bellamy had looked again. He was stout, and his hands were soft, unworked. A goddamn princess, and that was what Bellamy had called them. His features were strong, but they were pretty in a way his sister's face was. He was grateful for that. Anything that threw them off his sister was a godsend blessing to him.

Bellamy pulled her away immediately after the line-up. "What are you thinking? How the hell can you be so stupid?"

"I'm not spending another God knows how many years locked up somewhere waiting for you to come back," she shot back heated, voice pitching.

"Lower your voice," he hissed. Bellamy sighed, pressing his palm to his forehead as he glanced over his sister again. She still looked like an utter girl to him, but Octavia had told him that was just perspective. "You could have come as anything else. Volunteered as a medic."

She dismissed it. "I would have gotten someone killed."

"You'll get yourself and my soldiers killed, O," Bellamy snapped at her. He couldn't watch her die, not when he had gone through so much to save her.

"Bell," she sighed. "It's really a miracle I'm alive anyways. It's a miracle you were transferred to the prison. It was a miracle that we got out."

He didn't like to think about the prison, and he didn't like to think about what his sister had done to get herself in there. "Then don't waste it."

"I'm not," and he knew from the tone of those words, the subject was closed. Damn it all, damn her. "How's the war going?" It was his least favorite question, and it was also the question he was asked the most.

"Badly," Bellamy said. "We have the superior technology, but not going to die, the Grounders have the numbers. Lexa's battle plans are far better than anything we've got, and they know the terrain better than we do." His hands curled into his fists by his side, and he glanced over at his sister. "We're losing. And now I've got this rag-tag bunch, and I need to make the lot of you somewhat functional in two months."

Octavia wrinkled her nose. "Aren't the training regimes usually three?"

Bellamy nodded. "We don't have the time though." They didn't have any time at all, and whatever time they bought was borrowed and quickly slipping through their fingers. "And they, at least, got a functional leadership thing even if it's through reincarnation. We have a whole council grappling for the queen's power, the king given out by the damn queen and the princess singing for peace." He snapped his fingers. "We're screwed."

"We can win this, Bell," Octavia told him, fierce.

The smile on his lips felt dry. "That's what I keep telling myself."

**a/n **

**I will pay you with my soul (if I still had one I think it went missing after a certain something happened to a certain ned stark) if you think of a better title + summary than this for me omg I swear that's the hardest part**

**I LOVE REVIEWS ILY BE GOOD GUYS**


	2. moon is breaking through her hair

There were three days before training began, but it only took two nights for Clarke to acquaint herself to the nightlife of Camp Jaha. She had never slept much even before she had been imprisoned, and in the Sky Boxes, there was no difference between dusk and dawn. She slept when she did, and when she didn't, the stars and planets were sketched into the metal.

There was a part of her still itching to stay the nights up, scratching constellations on the wooden bunks. She settled with memorizing the camp. So now she knew that something in the air tasted like mint and alcohol, that the captain did guard shifts at night when he didn't need to and that Raven Reys was kind of fantastic.

They had met when Raven had all but dragged Clarke into the metallic craft – "I call it the Boss Headquarters because mechanics are kind of everything, but Wick calls it the _dropship_"– and told her she needed to use her height. Now she was going the same thing all over again. "You know," Raven said, lips tugged up into a grin as Clarke crawled out from beneath the shuttle. "Your hands aren't bad. Sure you don't want to give up the soldier gig and join the crew?"

"I'll have to refuse," Clarke told the dark-haired girl. "But thanks."

"Now I've gotta ask," Raven leaned against the gleaming panels, and even though there were smudges of soot smearing from the corner of her eye to her jaw, she was gleaming even harder. "What's your deal? You're pretty smart. There are better camps going to somewhere that isn't straight for the middle of battle with a half-trained bunch of teenagers."

It had been a good choice for Clarke. There would be no one to recognize her even with her disguise, and it would go straight for battle, straight for Lexa. "It's what I was given," she used the rags to clear the ash from her forearms. "I'm a half-trained teenager too."

"Oh, please," Raven snorted. "Don't give me that. Those hands?" She grabbed Clarke's before she could let go. "You've never worked a day in your life."

"Hands aren't everything," Clarke snatched her own away. She hadn't thought her story could be read in the lines of her palms. "I'm eighteen," she volunteered instead.

"Nineteen," Raven narrowed her gaze before seemingly letting it go. "You want a drink? It's the last you'll be getting before training starts."

Clarke shook her head. "What's training like?"

"Intense," she barked out a laugh. "You might die out there, but keep your chin up. Blake's a hard-ass, but there's nothing he likes less than a guy who takes it lying." She gave Clarke an appraising look. "You the type?"

The smile on her lips ached. "I get up every time."

"Good," she wiggled her eyebrows. "Good endurance?"

Clarke couldn't help but laugh. It occurred to her that she might like kissing girls as much as she did guys, but it wouldn't go anywhere. "Only the best."

"All guys say that," Raven returned the grin. "You guys suck compare to me. Blake's pretty good though. I'd hit that."

"You did or you would?"

"Did," Raven said. "Would again." She looked over Clarke. "You sure you don't want a drink?"

It was a bad decision. She knew it. If there was anything Clarke had learned, it was decisions, the consequences beneath them. "I'll get the kids from my bunk," she said decisively.

"The kids," Raven repeated with a snort, but the blonde was already gone into her cabin, waking up the other three who shared quarters with her. There was a bottle of moonshine in her grip and a light in her eyes. She could only do this once, and she wanted to do it now. Now while she could still be someone before she became no one, now because she was doing to die, sooner or later.

"What the hell, Clarke?" Octavian yawned out, eyes blinking to adjust.

Clarke held out the bottle. "You take Monty, I'll take Jasper?"

A grin flashed over his features. "You got it."

Clarke moved to the other side of the room to wake Jasper up ("ugh, no, go away – is that moonshine, Clarke?"), and then they were sneaking over to the Dropship (because Raven was mad if anyone thought they called it anything but). They could see her pony-tail bobbing as she argued with a scruffy looking bloke who she introduced as a damned travesty of an engineer. He called himself Wick.

: :

They were drinking, and frankly, Clarke loved it. She had always been in control of herself, and yeah she had drunk, stealing sips and laughing till it ached. It had been nothing like this though. She had fruity cocktails that burned in her throat as she swept it down in one go. This was alcohol, burning in her ribs long after it was gone. Octavian was singing some drinking song about Julius Caesar, a man who had lived thousands of years ago, and Cleopatra, a woman who had led to him losing his war.

Raven said it was a warning song. Octavian said it was a fighting one. Wick and Jasper said it was a love song, don't you know? Monty and Clarke couldn't decide.

"My brother taught it to me," Octavian told them throatily as she pitched her head back for another drink from a bottle, eyes gleaming in the fire's light. They had started a small fire at the edge of camp, getting drunk from a distance.

"Blake getting loose?" Raven grinned. She was leaning into Wick, but Clarke doubted the other girl had noticed.

Octavian wiggled his hips, and everyone laughed. "Oi, Jasper," the soldier leaned over. "Dance with me." It felt like a perfectly reasonable suggestion.

"Uh, yes," Jasper was quick enough to agree, and they were doing some sort of mad dance that involved high-fives every few seconds. Monty decided to join moments later because they were a bromance, and it was only right that he got in on it.

Wick looked at Raven.

"No," Raven said.

Clarke let out a laugh. "Come on then, Wick," she stood up.

"Someone cares," Wick told Raven who only laughed as she leaned back.

"She cares," Clarke told him, a hint of amusement in her voice as she twirled him. He dizzily bowed with a flourish before they got back into it.

"Nah," he shrugged. "She isn't the type."

"She's the type," Clarke insisted. "She's also the type to compartmentalize when she needs to." Then again, Clarke was the type to compartmentalize when she needed to.

"I'm not the type either," he gave her a forced grin, and then they were laughing again as the swung around with a whoosh until Raven stood up, demanding to cut in and getting Clarke all for herself. Wick said that they could share Clarke. Clarke told them that, no way, she was only for one. But they could dance out who got there. So then they were dancing, and Clarke was tilting her head back for another drink.

Then there was a body next to hers.

"Drinking already?" Blake asked her.

"While I still can, sir," Clarke answered, eyes fluttering as she watched the others dancing.

"Bellamy," he corrected her, looking at her, amused. His gaze was easily, but there was something heated in his gaze. Perhaps that was just Bellamy Blake, fire in his eyes. Any warmth she might have been feeling from the flicker of the flames and then his own fire, of Bellamy Blake vanished. "We don't all need to be reminded of our superiority, Princess."

She glared at him. "Clarke. Are you implying something?"

"We all know you're privileged," he arched his brows at her. "It's going to be hard not having everyone bow at your feet."

"You know nothing about me," Clarke began, but he cut over her.

"Can read your little story in the palm of your hands, princess," he told her, smirking.

Her eyes narrowed into a glare, but she couldn't quite fix it on him, still a little too drunk. That didn't stop her from reaching out to grab his roughened hand in her hands (and she could see the difference, see the cracks in his that told his story). She trailed a finger up, following one of the lines. "Would do anything for your little brother." He stiffened. "Climbed the ranks from the very bottom."

"What do you know?" He asked her, beginning to pull away.

"Part of the prison rescue from a few years ago," it was a guess, but from the way his eyes darkened, she knew she was right. Then she remembered that was a hell lot more than she could learn from a palm-reading, and she was stumbling up to her feet. "Good night, Bellamy."

He was still startled as he glanced up at her, dark eyes flickering. "You don't want to dance?" His voice was laced with mockery, but she could taste the suspicion, the tension. Stupid, stupid her.

"I think we've danced enough for one night," she faked a smile before leaving. She paused to watch him take a swig form her unfinished bottle and prayed that somehow the alcohol would blur the lines that were crossed. Because dammit, she shouldn't have known that.

: :

If she could stuff out the sun with her hands, she would. Everything ached. There was a gritty dry kind of taste in her mouth. She let out a string of quiet swear words, and she straightened to a sitting position. The whole world was throbbing at her, too bright lights and too dark shadows, and oh God, yeah, she was _so _hungover. The teenager rubbed her eyes as she tried to blink away, unsteadily stumbling to her feet. Octavian and Monty's beds were empty, but Jasper was still snoring.

Pale eyes flickered up to the sun. She might as well. Clarke swiftly changed first, making sure her bindings were in place before she shifted over to him. Shaking him awake like she had last night. "Ugh, Clarke," he flopped over on his back. "Not training, is it?"

"Not waking you up with more alcohol, sorry," she said, kind of amused but more headache-y. "That was a one time thing."

"Ow," Jasper pushed himself up to his feet, peeling off his shirt.

"Maybe the hangover will be a one-time kind of thing too." She decided that was her cue to get to breakfast, and she waved her hand at him before jogging out. Some water would settle her. It was when she got the main center, Bellamy threw her granola bar. "You're late, princess."

"I'm not," she frowned at him, but she took a bite.

"Finish that and take three laps. Stretch a little and then we'll do some warm-ups for training." His gaze lowered to her slender arms. "Let's see how long you last."

Clarke quickly finished the bar, and admittedly she liked the nutty sweetness between her teeth. There was something plaintive about it. It was like craving the taste of water but not quite being thirsty. She was determined to show him she could do as damn well as anyone else. It wasn't like she was completely out of shape. Jogging ached more with the thud of feet echoing the thrumming in her head, but she had to endure as much.

She didn't finish last, but she was close to it, gasping for breath. The dismissive glance he gave her as he passed by made her feel like she might as well have. Her hands closed into fists.

The abdominal training was no better, and Clarke was beginning to regret on skipping out on her physical education tutor. She wasn't bad at sparring, but she was severely outweighed. She followed Raven's advice, getting up each time like Octavian had. She could punch someone hard, but she couldn't pin them down.

He didn't look at her during the brief medical seminar. She did awesome.

"You know what?" Clarke tilted her chin back to drink all the water she could. "I don't need his approval."

"Ignore him," Octavian said. "Bell can be kind of an ass. Not like Jasper isn't worse."

"I wasn't made for this," Jasper informed them from where he had situated himself on the grass. "You kicked ass at the med bit, Clarke."

"You did great with the guns," she grinned at him.

"You're going to have to pick one of those up," Octavian drew a hand through his dark hair.

"I don't," Clarke said. "It's law. A soldier isn't required to touch a gun. They can use another weapon." As a princess, she wasn't to wear a gun unless she took her position as general-princess at war times or as the leader. She wasn't either, but she wasn't letting go of her oath.

"That's back from the Grounder treaties," Monty pointed out.

"Hasn't been amended yet, has it?"

"No," Octavian admitted. "But I'm still right."

"I'm still a little hungover."

"_I'm_ still drunk."

**a/n**

**let me know what you think! Does everyone feel in character? **


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